


Home Is Where You Are Not (Part 1)

by AgataVarano



Series: Scar [17]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Demonic Possession, Demons, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Hugs, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Light Angst, lara being a baby but that normal, this thing is gonna end up pretty bad i tell you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29092335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgataVarano/pseuds/AgataVarano
Summary: Friendly reminder to make sure the guy who wants you dead doesn't interact with demonic entities and that if your brother and boyfriend are both huge dicks they don't stay in the same room.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Female Character, Original Female Character & Original Male Character, Stephen Strange & Original Character(s), Stephen Strange/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Scar [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826437





	Home Is Where You Are Not (Part 1)

**Author's Note:**

> • English is not my first language so I'm sorry if there are any mistakes.  
> • You can find this and more fics on my Tumblr @/let-me-write-my-life and my Instagram @/agata_varano.

_ Home is where you can’t reach me. - 8kids (Ich gehöre dir nicht) _

_ ‘Das ist nicht mein Mann’, sagt sie sich immer wieder während sie im Zug alle anstarren.* _

_ She adjusts her sunglasses with the back of a hand, trying harder than ever to ignore all those eyes set on her. Why can’t anyone mind their own business? With a sigh, she collapses on her chair, focusing on the report before her. At least Feige didn’t question her unusually covering clothes. Then, she lets out a breath, glad beyond imagination by what she has just read. Luckily, this time her mission doesn’t include going undercover at a party full of male guests. She could not bear it again.  _ He  _ could not bear it again. _

She is walking back and forth across the Sanctum library, arms crossed tightly on her chest in defense. Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t. She collapses on the couch and buries her face in her hands, sobbing weakly.  _ “How does one even break a wall of a high-security cell?” _

A shaking hand tentatively sets on her shoulder and she turns around to wrap Stephen in her arms, nestling her face in the crook of his neck. The sorcerer waits for a moment, as if to wait for any signal to stop, but upon receiving none he pulls her closer. All his attempts to steady his hands turn vain and he lets out an exasperated sigh. “You’re safe here,” he murmurs against the side of her face, but they both know very well that, despite how sad it may sound, it’s not true at all.

But she nods all the same, appreciating the effort. She pecks his cheek and closes her eyes.  _ “Please, just once, stop time, let me live in peace a little more,” _ she thinks, tightening her grip around his shoulders.

Stephen brings a hand to the top of her hand and begins slowly caressing her hair, his scarred fingers getting stuck in the silky strands. Witnessing her fear, he doesn’t have the heart to tell her how dangerous the situation may actually be, regardless of some psychopath escaping jail.  _ “One doesn’t simply break a wall of a high-security jail.” _ But what scares him the most in the fact that no guard or prisoner seems to remember anything about those damn two hours. Absolutely no one. And that assh*le clearly doesn't have enough money to corrupt an entire prison.

She swallows heavily, holding back a sob. “I just wanted to move on,” she whispers.

He doesn’t say anything and instead pulls her closer, brushing his lips against the side of her face. “I know.”

Contrary to Lara’s deepest wishes, time slips fast and the previously sunny sky is quickly covered by clouds. Snow begins falling and Lara raises her gaze from Stephen’s shoulder to watch it as it covers New York with unusual delicacy. She lets out a breath and leans with the side of her face on Stephen’s shoulder, closing her eyelids in an almost desperate attempt to calm down.

When Stephen’s lips brush her forehead, a smile creeps on her lips. She opens her eyes and cups the sorcerer’s face in her hands, almost laughing at his confused expression. “Thank you for being here with me,” she whispers in a tone that is much sadder than it was intended to be.

His lips turn slightly upwards, even though he can’t shake off the lingering feeling that something bad is about to happen. “Anytime.” When his eyes set on her, he remembers the promise he made to himself many years before, on a cold night of that mess of a year that 2020 had been.

It was almost dawn and he had woken up after a nightmare. Nothing unusual, Dormammu had been tormenting him for years back then. What was still painfully unusual was, however, waking up without someone ready to calm him, someone who had most likely had a nightmare too, but didn’t want to admit it, someone who would talk with him about the most random topic until they both would fall asleep.

That void had been painful for him since the first moment, he knew that. But on that specific night loneliness came accompanied by regret: regret for never openly appreciating that pair of blue eyes shining beside him, comforting him, distracting him, fighting away whatever demon had been haunting his dreams. And that was the night he decided to never take for granted those precious people keeping him grounded and never expect them to just  _ know _ how much he cared about them.

Now, those blue eyes are right in front of him, studying his face. He lets out a breath, a sudden knot in his throat. “Lara, I-”

His awkward attempt at explaining his emotions is stopped by Lara pressing her lips to his, almost as if she already knew what he was about to say. When they part, any chance to go back to their conversation is destroyed by a message on Lara’s phone and a request from Elize: “Come here before Lilith kills your brother.”

When Lara steps out of the portal Stephen has promptly conjured, Lilith is one step away from breaking Jonathan’s skull against the wall. “Jonathan Houghton, I swear if you go after him-”

He laughs sarcastically. “You’ll do what? Treat me like sh*t? Would be no novelty.”

She sighs loudly, trying to bring the conversation back to calmer tones. “Jon, I’ll handle this situation just fine on my own, you don’t need to worry.”

“You told me the same when we arrested him and here we are!” He screams, his face as red as Lilith’s pants. “I SHOULD’VE KILLED HIM MONTHS AGO!”

Lilith clenches her fists and raises her voice too, not caring about disturbing the poor neighbours. "You dumb idiot, not everything's about you and your sister!" She takes a step towards him, her eyes locked on his. "If you do this, you may get hurt."

He arches an eyebrow. "And since when do you care so much about me?"

She opens her mouth slightly, then she finds enough self-control not to answer. "Whatever. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into, Houghton." Without further explanation, she walks out of the flat, pushing Stephen out of her way.

Jonathan watches her as she leaves, barely able to hold back further insults, and is only woken up from his tranche by Lara placing a hand on his arm. “Is everything alright?” she asks with astonishing calm, surprising not only Jonathan but herself too.

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Elle,” he mumbles, moving his gaze frantically between the parquet and her face.

She bites her bottom lip, catching with the corner of her eye his laptop still laying on the couch, Google Maps open on the screen. “What did you call me for?”

He throws a glance at Stephen, who is standing in perfect silence beside Elize, and the man ponders whom among his sister and the sorcerer he’d rather have by his side to commit murder. “We- actually, Lilith found Main.” He reaches for his laptop and moves it on the nearby table to let her the map. “He’s supposed to be with an uncertain number of agents here,” he says moving the cursor on the screen. “Near Whitman, Nebraska. We suspect he’s occupying an abandoned base.”

She nods and, leaning with her palms on the wooden surface of the table, she straightens herself. “And when are we leaving?”

He blinks a few times, unsure if he’s more surprised or concerned. “I- I didn’t think you wanted to-”

“Why shouldn’t I want to come?” she asks, arching a brow as a smirk paints her lips.

Jonathan would like to reply, but judging by her reddened eyes he understands his sister is going through that phase after a breakdown in which she is the most stubborn. Sure not to be able to convince her not to come, he nods. “We may as well leave now.”

Elize joins the conversation, hands buried deeply in the pockets of her sweatshirt. “Shouldn’t you, you know… inform S.H.I.E.L.D. of this little trip of yours?”

Jonathan scoffs, pleased to be able to throw out the remains of his anger towards Lilith. “Miss America doesn’t give a f*ck about this thing, last time it took me more to convince him than to actually get to Oklahoma City.”

Elize is about to reply, hoping to use Stephen’s clear disagreement with Jonathan’s plan to her advantage, but Lara stops her. “Yeah, don’t worry, Liz. We’ll be fine.”

She sighs loudly, putting so much effort into not reminding the two idiots - no, sibling, the two  _ siblings _ \- about all the other times they were supposed to “be fine” and almost died. “Whatever, have fun. Now I have to make a call.” She leaves to her room, damning whoever forgot to give her friends a little common sense. Luckily, her girlfriend is used to their stubborness mixed with pure idiocy and won’t miss a single step of them.

In the meantime, as Jonathan is in his room, reading his gun to hopefully shoot some assh*le, Lara finds herself staring out of the window of the living room, her gaze following the cars running below her. Something deep inside her hopes not to see any dark grey SUV. 

A shaking hand lingers on her waist, failing to bring her back to reality completely. Stephen lets out a deep breath, the side of his face brushing her hair. “Are you sure you want to do this? I mean… Yo- I-” God, how come his brain always short-cuts around her?

She smirks and leans against his side, enjoying the sight of the former world renowned neurosurgeon and now Master of the Mystic Arts Doctor Stephen Strange stammering like a shy boy offering his snack to his pretty classmate.

Her amusement does nothing but make the sorcerer blush until his face is almost of the same colour as Lara’s boots. “I… I lo-”

And once again she cuts him off by pressing an affectionate kiss to his cheek, definitely throwing all of his brain cells out of the window. Or at least it seems so, because otherwise the far from stupid man would have noticed the curious way Lara always feels like kissing him when he’s about to say those damn three words. After quickly pecking his lips, she runs a finger along his jaw. “You can come with us, if you want to,” she says with a strange glint in her eyes that makes Stephen wince.

He nods just before a cough behind them prevents him from going back to his previous point. Jonathan arches a brow, throwing Stephen a look that could kill, an option way scarier considering the loaded gun in his holster. “Are you guys done or you need a room?”

Stephen huffs and before the other man can even acknowledge it, he has portaled the three of them inside their intended base of destination. Jonathan just stops a broom from falling on his head and throws a glance around the dark closet. “You know this place’s abandoned, right?” he groans to Stephen, but the sorcerer arches a brow.

“Like that one in Washington?”

“It was  _ one  _ time.”

“Already too much.”

“What’s the matter with you two?” Lara comments, her arms crossed as she stands between the two men.

“Your boyfriend doesn’t trust me!” Jonathan whines.

“I would trust if you weren’t so stupid all the time,” Stephen replies, rolling his eyes.

Lara huffs and damns the day she decided to make them meet. “Join me when you’re done,” she says before leaving the two to their banter.

The hallway is empty, dust dancing in the air and shining when hit by sunlight. To Lara’s left, broken emergency stairs lead outside, where heavy snowfalls have covered everything but a narrow street surrounding the building. The whitish emergency door, with the stained glass on the top half broken, has been knocked off and leans useless against a wall, letting in the freezing wind of Nebraska’s winter.

Lara walks down the other end of the hallway, her boots leaving prints on the dirty floor. She hasn’t even got to the end of the corridor, when a strong stink of sulfur fills her nostrils. Her inner chemist takes over and she begins scanning her mind, searching for all possible compounds containing sulfur that could be found in a place like that. As her magic proceeds to isolate it, Lara walks to an unusually dark door and upon touching it she confirms that it’s been burnt all over its surface. She pushes it carefully, black ashes covering her palms, and she steps inside what used to be a laboratory, shattered glass and damaged tools scattered on the floor.

Before she can even realize what is going on, something wraps around her neck and her vision goes blurry. A voice gets inside her head, mumbling words in one of those strange languages Stephen sometimes speaks in with supernatural creatures. The only sentence she can recognize is a long series of fake apologies spoken by someone she knows too well. And then nothing.

*“That’s not my man,” she tells herself over and over while everyone on the train stares at her.


End file.
